The importance of Google reviews
A business review enables you to collect valuable feedback about your business, and helps prove your credibility and trustworthiness to potential customers. Those five review stars can influence people before they’ve even walked in your store or visited your website. So what if a customer has left a negative review?
How to delete a Google review
Sadly, there are people who leave fake or misleading Google reviews, however, there is something you can do about it. Removing or disputing a Google maps review is possible with the following:
1. Respond to the review
If you respond to the reviewer in a kind manner, apologizing if necessary and offering to make it right, the customer may choose to take down the review. It will also show potential customers that your company is willing to mitigate issues.
2. Flag the review
By flagging Google My Business reviews as inappropriate or fake, Google will then determine whether or not the review should be taken down. You can do this by clicking on the three dots next to your review and selecting “Flag as inappropriate”. If possible, ask other people to also flag the review to draw more attention to its removal.
3. Contact Google Small Business support
If the above hasn’t worked, you can contact Google’s support for businesses online. When they get back to you, you can defend your request to get it removed, explaining why it is false or in violation of policy.
Responding to a negative review
Sometimes reviews may be negative, but they aren’t violating Google’s terms. So how do you go about turning negative reviews around?
Having negative reviews isn’t necessarily the worst thing to happen. It demonstrates you’re a real business with real customers, and you didn’t just beg your pals to say nice things about you. After all, you can’t please everyone. But you should respond to a negative review in order to explain the misunderstanding. This could go a long way to changing the reviewer’s experience from a negative to a positive. Here’s how:
1. Be empathetic and think your response through
Before you jump on the defense, take the time to mull your response over after you’ve had time to think things through from the customer’s perspective. Even if you disagree with their feedback, respond in a way that shows their opinion is taken seriously. It’s also a good idea to suggest resolving the issue offline if possible.
2. Explain your side
Oftentimes, a negative review is a result of a misunderstanding. Responding with your side of the story may clear things up for the reviewer, and will also give future customers an opportunity to make their own decision based on both sides of the story. According to the Yellow Social Media Report 2020, over a quarter of consumers would change their opinion of a business who responded to a bad review. Just ensure to keep it factual and polite.
3. Turn the experience into an opportunity for growth
Perhaps the customer picked up on an area in your business that could be improved. Try not to let pride get in the way and instead thank the reviewer for their input and explain what you could implement to develop whichever aspect of your business was critiqued.
Always make sure to encourage customers to leave a review, as you want the positive ones to outweigh the negatives. Usually, people who have had a great experience with you won’t automatically remember to leave a review, so don’t be afraid to ask.
With customer reviews popping up everywhere from Google and social media to directory listings, it pays to have access to them all in one place. White Pages Connect lets you centrally monitor your customer reviews from around the web and reply to feedback directly – saving you time and making life easier.
